The ascendancy veil bp-3

by Chris Wooding

  'For the good of the Weavers,' Fahrekh said. 'I shall expect your immediate support.'

  The branches rattled as the two of them faced each other beneath the iron-grey sky. Avun knew there was no way to be sure of the creature before him. Who could tell what kind of madness lurked beneath that surface? But he also knew that Kakre was a liability, and becoming more so by the day, and sooner or later he might take it into his head to get rid of his Lord Protector. There was risk in both action and inaction, and in the end, he had to trust his intuition. And he was an expert betrayer.

  'I will do as you ask,' he said.

  Fahrekh nodded slowly, once. He turned and departed without a word. Avun watched him go, and then clutched his cloak tighter around him. It really was cold out here; he had begun to shiver.

  FIFTEEN

  Nuki's eye rose on a clear, chilly day, the grass trembling with dew; but Kaiku, Lucia, and their companions were up long before, and as they ate a cold breakfast, their eyes were on the trees. The endless wall of trees.

  They had camped within sight of the southern edge of the Forest of Xu, on the north bank of the River Ko. Few of them had slept much that night. Those that did woke unrested, complaining of ill dreams. There were twenty-five of them in all: Kaiku and Phaeca, Lucia, Asara, the three Tkiurathi, and eighteen other men and women of the Libera Dramach. They were here to face the Forest, and to find that which lurked at its heart: the Xhiang Xhi, most ancient and powerful of all the land's spirits.

  Kaiku returned to the camp, having washed in the river. Her teeth should have been chattering, but the autonomic reaction of her kana had raised her body temperature enough to cope. She was taking such things for granted now, her sense of wonder having faded over time. Perhaps she could not yet bring herself to believe Cailin's screed about how the Sisters and certain other Aberrants were superior to those who had not been changed by the Weavers' blight; but she could not resist a private smirk of amusement at the sight of the other soldiers hopping and flapping to warm themselves after dunking their stripped upper bodies in the freezing water.

  She stood on the crest of the river bank and debated for a moment whether to dress herself as a Sister or to remain in her tough, sexless travelling attire. She decided on the latter, in the end. It felt somehow false to put on the face of the Red Order to go into the forest. The forest would not be fooled.

  She stared grimly at the trees, the border between humanity's realm and that of the spirits. They stretched from horizon to horizon east to west, and rose upon hills in the northern distance. The Forest of Xu was the single largest feature of Saramyr west of the mountains, almost three hundred miles north to south and two-thirds that in width, bigger even than the colossal Lake Azlea which neighboured it. The only information about what lay within were rumours and legends, and none of them pleasant. The Saramyr folk had learned long ago that their land was big enough to live in without disturbing the spirits, and the Forest of Xu was the densest concentration of spirits in the land. Half-hearted attempts at exploration had been made, in advance of a foolhardy plan to build a road through the trees to facilitate trade between Barask and Saraku. Few who went in there had ever come out. Those that did escape left their sanity behind.

  It would be suicide, then, to set foot in such a place. But this time, they had something new. This time, they had Lucia. And on her slender shoulders rested all their lives.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Lucia appeared at her side. Kaiku glanced over at her, then back at the forest.

  'It hates us,' Lucia whispered.

  'I know,' Kaiku murmured. 'It has a right to.'

  A line creased Lucia's brow. 'We are not the enemies, Kaiku. The Weavers are.'

  'The Weavers were like us once,' Kaiku said.

  'But it is their god that makes them what they are,' Lucia said. She sounded frail, ready to shatter, and part of Kaiku did not even want to respond to this. But she had to now.

  'Their god never made anyone join the Weavers. Not after those first ones. The rest came of their own free will. He never made them put on the Masks. That was ambition, and greed, and the need to control and dominate. There is no depravity they commit that was not already there inside them. It is only that their consciences have withered.' She brushed her hair back from her face. 'They are just men. Men who wanted power, the way all men do.'

  'Not all men,' said Lucia.

  Kaiku looked over at where Tsata was sitting cross-legged, talking with his two companions. She nodded slightly. 'Not all men.'

  'Don't despair,' Lucia said, laying a hand on her arm. 'Please. You have always been stronger than me. I can't do this if you don't believe.'

  'Then do not do it,' Kaiku replied, turning to her. 'Go back, and I will go back with you.'

  Lucia's smile was sad. 'You have always thought of me over everybody else,' she said. 'Even if it cost the world, even if it cost the Golden Realm itself, you would have me prize my own safety before others.' She embraced Kaiku. 'You, and you only.'

  Kaiku felt a slow tightening in her heart; she knew by Lucia's tone that there was no dissuading her.

  Lucia released her and looked into her eyes. 'Nobody is safe any more, Kaiku.'

  They made ready to leave as the dawn light grew. Little was said. There was a palpable air of foreboding among them. A pair of manthxwa had been brought as pack animals, but like the ravens that had accompanied Lucia on her journey from Araka Jo they refused to go nearer to the forest than they already were. In the end the travellers were forced to distribute their supplies as best they could and turn the creatures loose. Only the Tkiurathi did not seem intimidated.

  Kaiku caught Asara looking at her strangely. Asara did not break the gaze; in the end, Kaiku did. Gods, it was bad enough going in there at all, but with Asara's black hints at some debt to be discharged, she was not sure whether that woman was to be trusted. Why had she come? She was never one to recklessly endanger herself. What price would she demand of Kaiku in return for saving her life?

  There was only one reason why the Aberrant spy was here, risking her life with the rest of them. She had unfinished business. When they were ready, they gathered at the edge of the trees. Beyond, the forest was a tangle of boughs and bushes, the ground knotted with hillocks and roots. Birds chittered, insects droned, distant animal cries could be heard. There was nothing out of the ordinary that they could see; but some prickling sense on the fringe of perception warned them against stepping past the ranked trunks of the border, something deep and primal.

  They were waiting for Lucia. She wore no armour like the soldiers, only some time-stained peasant clothes that did not suit her frame and made her seem small. She carried a pack as the rest of them did, at her own insistence, though they had loaded it lightly. She stood with her head bowed, her short blonde hair hanging forward, the burned skin of her neck exposed. They wanted her to turn and rouse them, to give them some of that fire that had blazed during the assembly at Araka Jo; but she had none to give them. Instead, she hitched up her pack to make it sit more comfortably on her shoulders, looked up, and walked into the forest. Without a word, the others followed.

  At Lucia's first step beyond the barrier of the trees, the forest fell silent. It spread outward in a wave, as if the tread of her foot had triggered some great ripple like a pebble dropped in a pond. As the ripple passed, the birds stopped singing, the insects quieted, the cries of the animals died in their throats.

  The intruders found themselves subject to a hush so profound that it was unnerving. The creak of leather armour and the rustle of their clothes were the only sounds they could hear, beyond the faint stir of the wind across the plains and the distant hiss of the river. They felt subtly fractured from reality, bereft of the spectrum of background sounds which had surrounded them to some degree all their lives. The silence ached.

  They went on. If they had harboured any doubt that the forest was aware of them, it had been discarded now.

  The trees thickened as they went f
urther inward. The bulk of the companions travelled in single file, threading their way around the rise of tuffets and rocks, hopping over dry ditches. The Tkiurathi took alternative routes, spreading out, reading the land. Though Lucia was their navigator they would not let her take the lead. She walked in front of Kaiku, occasionally shouldering her pack anew as it began to chafe. She was not strong: a sheltered childhood and adolescence had given her no experience of physical hardship. But though she struggled, she did not complain.

  Nobody spoke for what must have been an hour at least. The sense of oppression in the air was heavy, and getting heavier. Kaiku could feel the presence of the spirits here; they pervaded the place like the scent of disuse in a vacant house. They were waiting, breathless with malice and appalled that these humans would dare to enter their realm.

  Kaiku hoped that Lucia knew what she was doing. She was certain that Lucia could communicate with these spirits easily enough, but whether they would listen to her was another matter. And when – if – they got to the Xhiang Xhi which hid at the heart of the vast forest, would Lucia's abilities be up to the task?

  She recalled trying to reason with her back at Araka Jo. Why here? she had asked. Why this? Of all the spirits in the land which inhabited the deep and high and empty places, why choose the Xhiang Xhi?

  'Because the other spirits hold that one in awe,' she had replied, half-listening. 'Because no other could rouse them. This one dwarfs all the spirits in Saramyr. Even the Children of the Moons fear the Xhiang Xhi.'

  At one point, Kaiku dropped back to talk to Phaeca. She had somehow managed to imbue even her drab travelling clothes with a touch of flair, and her red hair was as immaculately arranged as ever. Small details like this gladdened Kaiku; they helped to stave off the steadily growing sense of hostility and isolation.

  'Why don't they get it over with?' she hissed, as soon as Kaiku was nearby.

  'Have faith, Phaeca,' Kaiku said. 'Lucia will protect us.'

  Phaeca gave her a quick look of disgust. 'Don't spin me such platitudes,' she snapped. 'You're as afraid as I am.' Almost immediately, the anger was gone, and she was aghast at her own reaction. 'Forgive me,' she murmured. 'This place is hard on my nerves.'

  Kaiku nodded. Phaeca's particularly sensitive nature was both a blessing and a curse here. She wondered whether Cailin had been wise to send her; she suspected the Pre-Eminent had done so only because Kaiku was going, and Phaeca was her closest companion within the Red Order.

  Phaeca, Asara, and possibly Tsata and the two other Tkiurathi were all here because she had come. And she had come because she could not let Lucia make this journey without her. Both she and Lucia, by risking themselves, had dragged others in their wake and put their lives in danger. Selfishness out of selflessness. There was no way to win. She thought she understood a little of Lucia's sense of being crushed by responsibility now. The change, when it came, was sudden.

  Phaeca cried out in fear at the sensation. It was like a thick tar that gathered in from all directions to engulf the mind. The Sisters spun defences automatically to preserve themselves; but the other members of the party had no such recourse. They were swamped by a glowering prescience of doom that manifested all around them. The sunlight that leaked through the leaf canopy thinned and died as if a cloud had passed before Nuki's eye; but then it began to darken beyond even the drabbest day, blackening to deepest night and worse, until all light was excluded and even those with the ability to see in the dark were rendered blind.

  Panic ensued. The darkness was bad enough, but the terror they felt was out of proportion even to that. Their senses screamed danger at them: there were things nearby, and while their eyes were useless their imaginations took charge. Monstrous, fanged beings, hanging in the air or slinking along the ground, black creatures who could only be envisioned by the gimlet gleam of their claws and teeth. The only sound was the desperate voices of the party, somebody shouting that they must protect Lucia, men who wanted to run but did not dare.

  It took Kaiku a few paralysed seconds before she had the presence of mind to switch her vision into the Weave. The darkness was merely physical, and had no power there. The world blazed into light again, the stitchwork contours of golden threads outlining the forest and the people within. She could see them stumbling, their arms out, eyes open but unseeing, pupils like saucers. Some had drawn swords, and were standing rigidly, listening for the approach of the enemy. The Tkiurathi had dropped into crouches, making themselves small targets; they appeared calm, though the pounding of their hearts and the rush of blood around their bodies told a different story. The threads of the Weave were churning, confirming Kaiku's suspicion: this terror was an artificial thing, a projection.

  But it was not without cause. For the spirits were coming, manifesting in the air all around them, forming into shapes that mimicked the party's fears. They were vague and indistinct yet, but gaining coherence with every passing moment, their blurred forms separating into limbs, jaws, talons. Dozens of them. She and Phaeca could not hope to fight them all.

  'Lucia!' she cried, but Lucia was not listening. She was kneeling on the ground, her hands buried into the grassy dirt, her head hung. Somebody shrieked, a voice that faded rapidly as if carried away at speed; Kaiku tried to locate them, but it had happened too fast for her. She cast about helplessly, unable to act. Lucia was talking to them. She could only hope that whatever she said was enough.

  The spirits were bleeding from the air, slinking from the treetops, knotting and sewing into shape with deadly purpose. The blinded humans in their midst flailed, aware that something was coming for them and having no way to prevent it. Kaiku's kana was raging within her, desperate for release; but the enemy were too many, and there was nowhere to send it that would have any effect. She felt Phaeca across the Weave, felt her struggle to keep control against the choking terror. She could see, as Kaiku could. One of the Libera Dramach narrowly missed impaling a companion on the point of his drawn sword as he staggered about; another almost tripped over Lucia, his hands held out before him, eyes unfocused.

  'Stand still, all of you!' she shouted, putting as much authority as she could muster into her voice. They did so, clinging to her words as a lifeline to control.

  'What's happening?' someone called to her, fraying with hysteria.

  'Lucia will see us through,' she replied, with more conviction than she felt. 'Wait.'

  She glanced back at where Lucia knelt. There was another shriek somewhere among the trees, cut short. She squeezed her eyes shut – which did nothing to block her Weave-vision – and prayed. The spirits were looming now, nightmare caricatures of childhood terrors, prowling between the trunks of the trees, stalking the humans. Kaiku desperately wanted to lash out; maybe she could ward them off, make them think twice about their prey. But to do so would mean the death of them all, for whatever Lucia was saying to them, her negotiations would collapse at the first sign of hostility from Kaiku.

  'Stand still and wait!' she said again, because she could not bear the silence. The Tkiurathi had not moved. Asara was nowhere to be seen. And seeping towards them like mist came the spirits, their forms now shifting and warping as they moved, bending perspective to become elongated, then suddenly two-dimensional, now folding around a tree at an angle that had not seemed possible a moment before.

  Closer, closer. Close enough to kill any one of them.

  Something slackened, some constriction in the air that went loose. The oppressive hatred of the spirits seemed to retreat. Kaiku looked to Lucia, but there was no outward reaction from her. The spirits hung where they were. Some of them had risen up by their intended victims like malevolent shadows about to snatch the bodies that formed them. She dared not breathe. Here, at this instant, was the balance. If it tipped one way, they would all live; if the other, she would have no option but to fight, and there would be no hope for them then.

  Then the forest sighed, and the spirits began to float backwards and away, bright eyes still fixed on t
he humans as they slipped between the trunks of the trees. Kaiku let out the breath she had been holding. The horrifying shapes were losing coherence now, dissipating into the Weave. And with their passing, the sense of malice and danger faded and the light returned. Slowly and by degrees, vision returned to them. It was like waking from a dream.

  They stared at one another gratefully, their eyes thirsty for sight. Guilt and confusion flickered across their faces as they were revealed: some were caught still cringing, others brandished swords inches from their companions. All were ashamed of their fear. Those who had moved about or fallen over reoriented themselves, blinking. The Tkiurathi rose slowly to their feet. Asara reappeared, stepping into view from where she had hidden herself.

  The forest had lightened back to normal now; Nuki's eye glowed through the canopy, and the world was green and brown and sane again. The silence was as great as before, but the spirits were gone.

  Lucia stood up slowly, her hands still dirty. She looked around, but her gaze passed over them as if they were not there.

  'They will give us passage,' she said simply.

  Phaeca began to cry. They went on, for there was little else to do; but their fragile confidence was shattered, and they crept like skulking children beneath the louring boughs of the forest.

  Two of the soldiers had been lost in the darkness, vanished without trace. Had Lucia not been there, none of them would have been alive now. Far from reassuring them of their faith in their appointed saviour, the incident had reminded them of just how slender their chances really were. Even the Weavers were better than this: at least they were a physical enemy. In the Forest of Xu, they were allowed to survive only because the spirits chose not to kill them. If anything happened to Lucia, they would never leave this place.

  Kaiku's thoughts were darker still. For she knew something the others did not, and it made matters worse than they already were.

  'We're still not safe here,' Lucia had said in response to her prompting, once they were back on their way. 'These spirits suffer us to pass, but there are others that won't.'